To present the project that was generated from the excellent cooperation between the designers Laura Stefani and Eva Franceschini, the two designers’ words offer a first understanding: a picklock to force the enchantment of their creations, helping us understand the new dimension of “preciousness” given by these “wearable sculptures”.

<< (…) All my work follows a guiding thread of using very poor base materials, as my intention is to render them more noble by means of manual, lengthy and extremely patient work. The project is the result of determined research and experimentation, beginning with what is normally eliminated or thrown away, or even forgotten, whether it is plastic, paper, fabric or metal. Using this dialogue between the different “ingredients” and, above all, by meticulous working, I am able to create a totally new construction, often far removed from the original material, to the extent it feels almost foreign or alien. Lengthy, methodical physical work, not just an idea, makes a simple jewel into a small wearable masterpiece, wearing a sculpture full of an emotion that is as intense as the material is humble, suggesting that each work is a form of art that wants to tell its story, needs to communicate.>> ( 1)

<< Create, create, create! Get my hands dirty, cut, burn, laminate, drill – for a few years now this has been my everyday “entertainment”. >> ( 2)

Without doubt the main dimension is “play”, not just as a simple pastime, but an activity with all the seriousness, method and total devotion that a child puts into its game.

If adults are able to recover that special value, it means we are able to see our everyday life from a different point of view: perhaps we had not understood until now the infinite shades of green and blue in the plastic bottles for water and other drinks, which fill the supermarket shelves every day, or perhaps we had not realized how soft and brilliant new “blades of grass” could be to wear casually like a large brooch. Silver – purposely oxidised, as if concealing its intrinsic value – creates further shades.

The potential of plastic, cut with great precision, heated, shaped, welded, reinvented, takes on a totally new connotation. It becomes completely different from the original item, even though it conserves a deep down recollection. Preciousness is generated from this planned metamorphosis, is possible by constantly refining technical skill and sensitivity in shaping what becomes “new material” for new objects.

Metal, often the conventionally precious ones, is the support for this game, like the high wire in the circus, where its narrowness emphasizes the heavy matter of whatever is placed on it, at the same time showing all its strength, without which the acrobat would be unable to walk along it. The dialogue is between materials, it is speculative between the two designers, between a rational sphere and the recollections of whoever observes or wears these precious sculptures.

Notes

(1) Laura Stefani, proudly self-taught in the technique of working plastic, she enjoys experimenting and following new paths, with the precise aim of make an extremely poor material noble through her manual, lengthy and very patient work.

(2) Eva Franceschini, Art in Sculpture Teacher at the Pietro Selvatico Art Institute in Padua, her jewels are often exhibited in the permanent exhibitions in various European Art Galleries.